


Dragon Prince: For Union and For Liberty

by ChiRhoAO



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aanya - Freeform, Action/Adventure, Alternate History, Claudia - Freeform, Dead Viren (The Dragon Prince), Del-Bar, F/M, Fluff, Katolis (The Dragon Prince), King Ezran (The Dragon Prince), Long Live the King!, OC Hatran and Irna, OC Ulysses Morton, Rayllum, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26689552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiRhoAO/pseuds/ChiRhoAO
Summary: In the year of 1865 a regiment of civil war soldiers found themselves lost in Xadia, the ramifications would echo through history.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. The Mage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter One has been updated with more content to fit my general chapter lengths. I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading!

**Dragon Prince: For Union and Liberty**

**Book I- Legacy of the Lost Regiment (1923-1945)**

**Chapter 1- The Mage**

**Location: Kingdom of Katolis, Pentarchy (1923)**

Callum, high mage of Katolis, was beginning to feel the weight of his years. When he stretched out on an overcast day like this one, he felt all the joy of his seventy years and change. Reluctantly he turned over, coming face to face with Rayla. She was still in the prime of life. Such was the way of elves, barring the lightest, almost imperceptible laugh lines, he still saw, much the same elf he'd fallen for in what now seemed an age ago.

Feeling that the restless man was awake her eyes opened though she remained silent. Callum pressed a finger to his lips, he heard the restless pitter-patter of two pairs of feet, hell-bent on dragging their poor parents from restful slumber. They creeped on, feeling that they had been quite clever, but they hadn't inherited the feet of their mother, not wholly anyway.

Just as the two shades pounced on their prey, their sire shouted and signed, "Aspiro!" This action sent the poor halflings flying to the walls where they promptly burst into fits of laughter. The exercise was as much a part of the morning routine as Rayla's famous moonberry pancakes.

"Hatran, Irna, ya little scamps, will you never learn?" Their mother said, knowing full well the answer was no. She knew that trying to appeal to the tiny, pointy eared twins was as much a lost cause as so many of the goads against progress that the Columbians had instituted. Like with the twins, the couple had long sense come to terms with the simplest of the facts of life, "Life is not as I'd have it."

They sent the little imps off to harass the poor chef for breakfast, giving them a rare moment of privacy. Callum was the first to break the sweet silence, "Why did we have kids again?"

She smiled, "Oh I do'na know? Maybe, it's because shortly after the wedding the merry moron ya chose for yer best man teased ya about it? Oh 'er maybe it was his sister who questioned yer manhood just before she made the stupid decision to nose-dive inta a live volcano. Nah," she said on second thought, "must've been about the time ya discovered that yah had a few gray hairs, old man." She poked a stomach that, through careful exercise retained much of its youthfulness.

"You are so…" Rayla pressed her lips to his. The two laid there, each other's hands doing little to resist the intimacy that came with so many years of being so close. They had lived and loved through war and peace, through stormy squalls and clear blue skies. Now, not even the specter of death, that last and most final of challengers on the battlefield that we call life, could even boast to separate them.

It wasn't all grim though, as they reminded each other this crisp, cool, winter morning. "If I'm an such an old man." Callum began.

"Oh, don't flatter yaself." She climbed on top of him, "Leave that ta me." For Callum and Rayla it was just the latest day in the paradise they had built together.

***  
 **Location: Grand Union Line, Columbia to The Breach**

  
Ulysses Morton had planned to use the long train ride across the breach to finish reading Three Princes: Dawn of an Era and he nearly succeeded in digesting the entirety of the war that had been fought by his grandfather, and how it had brought about such a long piece. He even had the good fortune of a spacious car with few passengers.

  
The standard setup for passenger cars consisted of two columns of hard wooden seats facing each other, presumably to facilitate conversation. On a warm summer day it was all well and good, but on a day like today… well it was fortunate that Ulysses was in his heavy, blue wool coat and forage cap.  
It was on the second day of the trip as the iron-dragon steamed into Luxaria, that the his whole course on life’s journey was fatally upended by the entrance of one Selena DeReine. Bound for the capitol of Katolis as he was, she was brimming with excitement, and set to asking him a frankly astounding number of questions that could only have come from someone leaving home for the first time. It was charming and youthful in the same way that the great elven broadsword that she had sheathed in her lap was imposing.

“Where are you bound?” She asked.

  
“Katolis is the jewel of the human kingdoms, yes?” She asked immediately after.

  
For hours he observed her watching wide eyed as the vast expanse of the countryside. As they passed through his home in the Blood earth lands, they saw little more than expanses of snow and small cottages with chimneys billowing smoke. Spring was on the way, but still taking her sweet time.

  
He took a turn at childish innocence in describing the wild flowers, and the feeling and smell of moist ground as they plowed the field in spring, and of waving brown stocks of wheat in the fall. He talked of dances, and music, and drinking, and she soaked it all in with delight.

  
She never noticed that for him it was all worded as he might speak of his dearly departed grandfather. It oozed with memories that he’d put behind him, for the sake of an incident that he never did come to terms with. In his dreams it all played out as storm of lead and bone and guts. He heard the whistling winds scream and…

  
The lands gradually became less settled as they entered the frontier, and jungle and hills became overgrown. By then the sun had begun to set and she amused him further by trying to find a comfortable position. He watched as her frame, several inches taller than his own, attempted to lay down.

  
“It’s no good, miss.” He produced a canteen full of something closer to lighter fluid than water, and downed a few heavy knocks before handing it to her. She took one sniff, tried it and coughed, “Yes, I think that will help… if I don’t belch flames.”

  
He smiled as he took it back. She took the hint by observing the way he used his knap-sack as a pillow. She supposed the little halfling was an amusing creature.  
Soon after she drifted off to sleep as the train rattled and smoked on into the winter night. It sent a great black plume up against the backdrop of the setting sun thundered over the tracks.

  
[To Be Continued]


	2. Life is Not as you Like it.

**Dragon Prince: For Union and Liberty**

**Book I- Legacy of the Lost Regiment (1923-1945)**

**Chapter 2- Life is not as you like it.**

**Location: Kingdom of Katolis (1923)**

The Royal dining room was designed to seat over a hundred, and could be rearranged for as many as a thousand reveling members of the standing battalion. As such it was far from ideal for a family of four. The few members of the staff had tried their best but it just left the family freezing, and their meals- to use a favorite term of his late Aunt’s “Weapons grade.”

All breathed a sigh of relief when the prince suggested that the drawing room would make for a far better dining experience. That was where they had elected to dine ever since. Rayla felt more comfortable in the more composed place, with its soft red carpets, and cheery paintings depicting farmers bringing in the harvest. It wasn’t home, but she’d long laid to rest her feelings about her prolonged exile.

Wonder-of-wonders, even the “twin-terrors” as the staff called them, were on their best behavior for a change. They gleefully consumed jelly tarts which they’d absconded from the kitchen with, and downed juice with a speed that suggested that they were starving. It was proving to be a decent day.

Ulyse Morton and Selena LaReine were having a very different time in this climate. The Sunfire Elf radiated the heat that was the gift of the Arcana she was born with. This meant that she was more than happy to walk the countryside in an armor that lacked all the modesty of her grandmother’s generation. The widespread use of fire arms had made armor obsolete. As a result her people hot blooded as they were, threw modesty to the wind for exposed midriffs and breast plates that served no better purpose than gathering the stray eye of anyone in a room with a pulse.

By contrast the man who walked by her side seemed far more human in reaction to the chills in the air. He trotted along half-frozen day and night. His blood-earth heritage granted him only mild lethargy and homesickness. Every time he felt even the faintest warmth from his companion he shuddered with the memories of home. He dreamed nightly of his shifts to crawl from bed and tend to the fire during the winter as his family slept for days on end.

“Whoo-ah!” Selena stretched jumping up, as though she might touch the sun in the sky.

“S—ssome war cry I’m unfamiliar with?” He tried to be sarcastic but it came out to pathetically weak to take seriously.

She danced around him before laying her hands on the shoulders of his blue overcoat. “Come on where’s that Yankee swagger?” The blessed heat passed from her hands and warmed his body.

“You have my thanks ma’am.” He said, doffing the forage cap that hid the short horns that had never quite grown in on his head.

“Think nothing of it Ulyse. You’ve been an intriguing companion to say the least.” She said.

He sighed sending a burst of visible breath like fire from his mouth. “My apologies for the other night, I don’t imbibe of-.”

“I won’t hear anymore of it, and I told you that it was nothing. Get over yourself.” She snapped back. He was a well meaning enough boy. She couldn’t really begin to think of him as a man, and it was more than his high tenor voice, or his unfashionably smooth shave. It had little to do with the fact that she pushed 6’3” in bare feet while he barely reached 5’ 10” in his boots. None of that really bothered her.

No deep down, what made her feel like he was an adopted brother instead of a man who was a full two years older than her, was the haphazard way in which he went about everything. It was a curious trick, the way in which he could seem to both be the most brilliant person she’d ever met, and like a totally inept moron when it came down to execution of any task.

The two had been lucky that few bandits found it worthwhile to fight in winter, and that fewer still considered one halfling and a sun fire elf with a runic rapier a worthwhile target. Such banditry was not uncommon anywhere on the continent, east or west, there were always bandits. The Columbian League did an admirable job in the spring and summer months out East of pulling in the wretches and putting them to work.

Here in the Pentarchy the responsibility fell to individual kingdoms, but the sad truth was that one really had no guarantee of safety in the increasingly xenophobic human kingdoms. Katolis was relatively well mannered to elves… relatively. When they needed a room at an inn, they had little trouble getting it. Neither had been given any hints of just how bad it was.

The tramped on through the day until they came to a bridge over a frozen river, at that point they became all too aware. It was there that a hundred crimson clad guards struggled out from under the bridge armed with gleaming muskets and brandishing a red flag with the five stars of the Pentarchy.

“Drop your arms you pointy eared freaks!”

***

“Callum?” Rayla could see the way in which he tore through the note.

“Oh it nothing, Ezran is coming back early,” his eyes wandered to where his children had been eating. They seemed to have run off somewhere.

She smiled, “No! How will the kingdom survive?”

“Well I can’t speak for the kingdom, but I can speak for my waistline.” He said, patting his stomach for good measure.

Rayla reached over to do the same, “Aww when are you expecting?” She teased, “besides mister high and mighty Archmage, yours truly has no intention of not making you work for every bite you take.”

“I know, I know.” He stood and gestured to the door. “Shall we take this outside?”

“Tonight’s a full moon, and I for one cannot wait to see how you try to avoid getting your ass kicked.” The elf smirked, “Until then I think I can keep you busy with… other things.”

He laughed, “Other things?”

She grabbed his arm and dragged him into the hall, “Yup.”

“What’s sorts of?” He was cut off by Rayla pushing him against the wall, and covering his mouth. She pointed up at the exposed wooden columns.

“Oh the sort of things that a little boy and girl would be scarred for life by seeing.” Both heard giggling above that seemed to get more distant. Callum tried to ignore the fact that his wife was pressing her body against him trying, and failing. “Irna, Hatran, just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I can’t hear you clip clopping around.” A few more seconds and she finally let go of his mouth.

“Give it a few more years and they’ll be unstoppable.” He gasped.

She said nothing for a moment longer before backing away and looking at him gravely. The Moonshadow elf whispered, “I played along because I knew about the eyes and ears on us. Now I want you to tell me what’s bugging you about that letter?”

His reply did not remedy her fear, “Not here.”

[To Be Continued]


	3. Crazier Things

**Dragon Prince: For Union and Liberty**

**Chapter 3: Crazier things.**

**Location: Kingdom of Katolis, Pentarchy (1923)**

Ulysses Oliver Morton, Ulyse to his friends, was a man of principles. He rarely drank, tried not to swear in front of the fairer sex, he prayed every evening for a good harvest and a blessed year. His parents had always said he was a good boy, and now he might die for no reason at all. Or maybe it was just deserved for a horrid situation which played direct part in his exile from the hallowed halls of Columbia.

He and Selena obliged the guard though it gave him no pleasure and had ignited the woman to the point where he could hear the snow flurries’ “pshsh" sound as they evaporated off her body. The man in Crimson that appeared to be leading these guards held a pistol in the air and fired it. “Don’t be a fool freaks. These guns will tear you to pieces if you don’t yield.

“Do you have any idea who I am human?” She said. Uyles observed the mirage emanating from the woman’s skin. If it weren’t so burning hot, it would’ve sent chills up his spine.

He laughed, “Of course I do! By the Thunderer, do you think we were out for a stroll after a big meal?” He doffed his cap, “Your Radiance.”

Ulyse felt his heart thump at that. How could this be, and why would she be traveling alone?

It was no band of thieves and murderers. The men and women were well fed and brandishing copies of his own Columbian long rifle. Even the pistol now lowered on him by the man in crimson was a model of his own Colt pistol. They were heavily armed and holding as steady as any drilled unit he’d seen at university.

She was visibly shaken. “You realize that I am-“

“That you are expected by His Majesty the King Ezran of Katolis, long may he reign!” He interrupted. “Oh yes we are very well informed. Hell, we even know about this bastard halfling.” The officer gestured at Ulyse. “Tell me halfling how did it feel, leaving your entire squad to get eaten alive, hmm?” He paused, “Oh never mind you coward. I guess I might as well introduce myself.” The man stroked his salt-and-pepper beard, “I am General Larin, of Del-Bar, now throw down your arms in the name of the true Pentarch.”

Ulyse finally managed to find his voice, “True Pentarch?”

The soldiers burst out laughing, “Who knows, maybe you’ll live long enough to find out?” Larin sighed, “Now I grow tired of this, lay down your arms or die, five, four…”

***

Rayla looked left and right, she strained her exceptional hearing as well as she could. Having heard nothing, she followed Callum into his study and locked the heavy door. The place was disheveled at the best of times. Two easels sat with half-complete paintings of Hatran and Irna, amidst a dozen other paintings depicting fruit, Rayla against the backdrop of a moon, and various other memories swimming through her husband’s head.

In another corner of the Room was his desk, it had been a gift from a grateful Columbian Craftsman. It was a huge L-shaped monstrosity of solid wood on which was painted a troop of soaring skywing elves. Littering the surface were letters awaiting his response, treatises on Arcana from the Sunfire Elves, transcriptions of runes from every corner of the Xadia. Adding to the madness were several folios of Callum’s sketches scattered here, there and everywhere. One lay open, showing the couple caressing each other modestly.

Between these two mountains of madness was a literal valley that the door led into with steps dividing the two halves. This valley was largely free of litter, with a simple rug, a decanter of moonberry brandy, and a chair that seen better days. Rayla had never seen her husband restock that jar but judging from the faint tincture of it she received in his breath every now and again she suspected that it was continual. She didn’t mind, in youth and in old age his touch never made her doubt her own safety. 

Leaned against one side of this worn-out armchair was his now heavily patched knapsack, and on the other, the latest incarnation of his Spell Book which as a general rule had no spells. He offered her the best seat in the house and she prepared for the maypole dance that would follow as he tried to explain.

He didn’t, instead he grabbed a stool that looked like it had been made for one of their children and sat in front of her. “Del-Bar is usually impenetrable this time of year, and Ezran thought it’d be a good idea to send Cela to investigate.” He paused.

“Yeah, so?” Rayla added.

“Luckily she got back safely, but what she brought back was terrifying.”

***

The indignity of being disarmed made Selena fit to burst into a bon fire. She nearly did too, until it was summarily snuffed out by a bucket full of soft white snow. Her teachers had tried to temper the boiling hot blood in her vanes by stressing that, “Discretion was the bettor part of valor.” She didn’t by it then and barely bought it now that she found herself in the hands of some obscene entity.

For both the elf and her halfling companion it was some relief that they weren’t marched straight through the rugged mountain passes of Del-Bar. The meandering path they had taken was clearly meant to disguise the groups movement, but as far as Ulyse was concerned it was overkill as snow started to fall gently from the grey clouds over head.

Ulyse had been deprived of his pistol and rifle, though that didn’t exactly mean he was defenseless. He had a knife in his boot and a tomahawk in his bag, not that it did him much good against a company of men. Even now though, the gears in his head were turning, plotting.

Rock, rock, creek bed, squish squish through mud, such was the monotony of foot travel. It was near dark when they reached the hidden tents of the encampment. The two prisoners were offered the shelter of a cell mounted on a horse cart. No food, no water. Humanitarians all, they first made sure to make the halfling shed his boots, overcoat and bag. He supposed they might’ve killed him, but next to the firm possibility of frostbite claiming a finger or two.

They were given quite the outsiders eye-view to them as they reveled and toasted, and seemed almost human. Ulys tried to sequester himself at one edge of the cage, but it was difficult to hide his shivering. Selena wouldn’t stand for it and quickly found herself holding him in her lap like some absurdly large child. “Silly boy you are if you’d sooner die than be in the arms of a friend.”

That pained her as soon as it was out of her mouth, the same foolish pride that had nearly led her to charge blindly into an untenable situation would’ve made the boy freeze. He looked weakly up at her, then closed his eyes. It was the last thing she remembered before drifting off to a pleasant dream of summer.

***

The hand full of staff members in the castle cheered against torchlight as they struggled to make out Lady Rayla in the courtyard. Even Irna and Hatran sat spellbound by how fast their mother glided off walls and seem to fade into the blackness of the night. Their father was no pushover in his old age, he’d have been far more dangerous otherwise.

“Fulminis!” He shouted as he traced the rune releasing lightening from his hand.

It narrowly missed Rayla as she perched atop an arch at one end, “Is that the best you’ve got?”

“Are you going to attack, or would you pre-“, Rayla held the butterfly dagger to his throat. Just as quickly she returned it to its holster. The small crowd cheered. Callum was taken genuinely by surprise, “But how?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She winked.

Irna jumped into her mother’s arms, “That was sooo cool,” she said hugging her.

Hatran was close behind, equally excited and trying not to seem tired. Adults were always doing cool things after he fell asleep.

“How about you little guy, what did you think?” Callum asked. He got down on his knees.

He rubbed his eyes, “When will I be able to do magic like you?”

That made him shrug, “I don’t know.”

His sister shot back, “We have the moon, not the sky, right momma?”

Rayla smiled, “That’s right, when did you get so smart?”

“You taught me.” Irna replied.

Hatran wanted to be like his dad, and like most six-year old’s huffed at the annoyance. Callum placed an arm on his son’s shoulder, “Hey, you never know, before me, no humans could do magic. Crazier things have happened.”

***

Lujanne had grown used to the shades the cluttered around the newly rebuilt henge of the Nexus. There they waited and would continue to wait until reunited with loved ones that they simply couldn’t bare to go on without. Normally they were barely a breeze, but on the night of the full moon they were almost solid, albeit see through.

She’d never know what Claudia was waiting for her father and brother had long since faded into the ether, only she remained. Try though she might, as she sat in meditation, the answer never came. Claudia made history as she stole away from the Nexus that night.

The feeling of leaving the Nexus was akin to being torn in half. It was the pain of a soul tearing itself in half. She threw up her head and screamed as her etherial body materialized and she solidified. Air filled her lungs and her white hair fluttered in the wind. The unfortunate condition of being alive, and being very naked took a while to register.

“I--- I’ll find him,” she stumbled forward, “m-m-m-must find.” There was no time to spare. She followed this logic down the Cursed Caldera. The town guard found her the next morning and dragged her into the local drunk tank, some people really couldn’t handle their spirits.

[To Be Continued]


End file.
